To address the matter, the government has taken out a $1.9 million advertising campaign in 58 newspapers across the country. Important quality-of-care information for medical facilities in a paper’s circulation area will be provided in a full-page ad.

The information disclosed in the newspaper ads is just part of what people can find out about a medical facility from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare Web site. Making the data publicly available like this “gives patients the ability to compare hospitals, which wasn’t possible before without a national standardized assessment,” said Deb Smith of the OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, Ill. Hospitals are also using the information from Hospital Compare to see where their services need improvement. “It’s a chance for us to see what we do well, and for the medical staff to learn” about needed improvements, said Dr. Peter Shea, the medical director of the William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn.

“Transparency in health care is a growing trend,” added Keith Fontaine, the Backus vice president of corporate communications. CMS plans to continue requesting performance data from hospitals and keep building its Web site over time.

“It’s time to make quality information available at the fastest rate that we can but ensure the data are reliable,” said CMS administrator Kerry Weems.

The ads direct readers to the Hospital Compare Web site. The site may provide considerable data about patients’ experiences at a medical facility, but whether the quality assessments “are valid or relevant has been fodder for countless studies and expressed opinions,” according to Avery Comarow, who writes a health blog for U.S. News & World Report. However, comparison information for facilities in a particular geographic area is provided in bar graphs, making any visible performance differences “a surefire attention grabber.”

“We applaud the CMS initiative in terms of bringing patient satisfaction to the forefront,” said Dr. Gary Hagens of the BroMenns Regional Medical Center in Illinois, but he noted that the Hospital Compare Web site is still a “work in progress.” Submitting information in these early stages of Hospital Compare was voluntary, and BroMenns declined because the “CMS methodology was confusing and BroMenn’s data were incomplete,” the Pantagraph reported.

Kelly Anthony, a spokesperson for Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in Connecticut, urged patients to use the information from the Hospital Compare Web site carefully, and look at data in a “larger perspective.” For example, Hospital Compare offers ratings for patient satisfaction with the quietness of a hospital at night; smaller hospitals may have a “built-in advantage” over larger hospitals because they have fewer critically ill patients, Anthony suggested.

Go to the Hospital Compare Web site to learn more about the medical facilities in your area. See how often a hospital provides recommended treatments for medical conditions, or see results from patient surveys about their hospital experiences Most hospitals with information on this site submitted their facts voluntarily.

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